Merchants often use electronic payment services to accept payments from a customer. Currently, the most common form of electronic payment in the United States uses card with a magnetic stripe (e.g., credit card, debit card, gift card). The magnetic stripe contains data that may be read by swiping the stripe past a magnetic reading head. Magnetic stripe cards may further comprise an RFID tag, transponder device, and/or microchip.
In addition, mobile payment services may be implemented using a smart phone or other portable processing device. A mobile payment service digitizes and replaces the magnetic stripe card. In general, the portable processing device wirelessly communicates with point of sale (POS) systems using a near field communication (NFC) antenna.
The need exists for making electronic payment services, and in particular mobile payment services, more secure and easy to use.